Insomnia Post Tinnitus Habituation — Will My Normal Sleeping Patterns Come Back?

So I have had tinnitus for a little over 2 months, and I am more or less used to it. When it first started I got the usual overwhelming anxiety from it and then insomnia followed. However my anxiety over tinnitus has subsided a lot, but I just can't seem to sleep (2-3 hours of sleep a night). It is definitely not the tinnitus because I often forget about the sound when I am attempting to fall asleep.

Any reassurance my normal sleeping patterns will come back?

Thanks.

 

I've had tinnitus since birth and I've been sleeping with earplugs for the last decade, so I hear it loud and clear every single night. (I lived in a noisy dorm during my college years and although I live on my own now, I didn't shake the earplug habit.) My sleeping patterns are just fine, thank God.

So I'm sure your sleeping patterns will also normalize. Just give it time, 2 months is very new in tinnitus-world. In fact, you're doing extraordinarily well - there are many people who take much longer (a year, two years) to adapt to the noise.

 

While your anxiety has subsided, is the sound keeping you alert at night? Have you tried white noise?

 

the sound isn't keeping me alert. when i try to sleep, i just dont fall asleep.

 

Why do you sleep with earplugs? I thought sleeping in silence made tinnitus worse?

 

They were a necessity in my noisy college dorm room. I've now been using them for over a decade and can't shake the habit any more.

Earplugs don't change the volume of the tinnitus. I hear it clearer, of course, but that's just because there's no external noise that would mask it.

Also, this earplug habit has been useful in several ways.

Early warning system: When I got new tones in 2016, they were so quiet that I needed complete silence to hear them. However, I definitely noticed them at night, freaked out, found out about headphone use harming ears, discontinued it, and the noise has been stable ever since. Had I not slept in earplugs, I probably wouldn't have noticed that tone until much later, when the damage would have been a lot worse.

Habituation: At night there's no escape for me. I can't sleep without earplugs and I can't sleep with a masking noise. My brain needed to adapt to the noise in its pure, unmasked, full form. It's a bitch of a way to habituate but it worked. (Maybe it wouldn't work for more severe tinnitus; I hope I'll never ever find out.)